Big name in carving knives / TUE 1-13-26 / Birth name of Marvel Comics Black Panther / Angle symbol, in geometry / Segments of earth's lithosphere
Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Constructor: Nate Hall
Relative difficulty: very very easy
Theme answers:
- NEONATAL NURSE (19A: Hospital worker tending to newborns)
- MECHANICAL BULL (31A: Bar attraction with a saddle and horns)
- TECTONIC PLATES (42A: Segments of Earth's lithosphere)
Cutco Corporation, known prior to 2009 as Alcas Corporation, is an American company that sells cutlery, predominantly through multi-level marketing. It is the parent company of CUTCO Cutlery Corp., Vector Marketing, Ka-Bar Knives, and Schilling Forge. The company was founded in 1949 by Alcoa and Case Cutlery (hence "Al-cas") to manufacture stainless steel knives for Alcoa's WearEver Cookware division. Alcoa purchased Case's share in the company in 1972, and Alcas became a separate private company in 1982 after a management buyout. In 1985, the company acquired Vector Marketing Corporation.
The company has been the subject of criticism and lawsuits for its business practices, and has been accused of being a multi-level marketing company. The Los Angeles Times claims that Vector meets the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) definition of a multi-level marketing company which is "businesses that involve selling products to family and friends and recruiting other people to do the same" because they sell their product through person-to-person sales. Salespeople are generally young and recruited from high school or college. Students are hired to sell Cutco products (mainly kitchen knives) to customers, starting with their friends and family. Vector's recruitment tactics have been described as deceptive, and they have faced numerous lawsuits over their pay structure and treatment of its salespeople, who are mostly independent contractors instead of employees. Vector claims they are a single-level direct selling marketing company, not a multi-level marketing company or a pyramid scheme as its detractors claim.
Bullets:
- 36A: 1985 mystery film with three different endings (CLUE) — this movie is very silly and very enjoyable. I don't think I saw it when it initially came out, but I did watch it just last month as part of my "What Would I Have Seen 40 Years Ago?" movie-watching project. Just to give some structure to my (prodigious) movie-watching habit, I decided that once a week I'd just look at the movie listings for 40 years ago and then watch whatever movie I'd see if those were my options. In the first two weeks of this year, I've watched Ran and Brazil. Which is to say there were some *really* good movies in theaters 40 years ago. As for CLUE, it's no Ran, but it is entertaining. It's got Martin Mull *and* Madeline Kahn (something Ran cannot claim—though why they never remade Ran with Martin Mull and Madeline Kahn, I do not know—I'd've seen that sixteen times)
- 9D: Yogi, once (BEAR CUB) — this is a hilariously tortured example of successive clue rhyming. You've got 8D: Yogi's pose (ASANA) and then ... this clue, immediately after. If you had to write a hundred BEAR CUB clues, you'd never use Yogi. Only the proximity of this yoga clue is going to suggest to you "hey, what if Yogi was ... little? I know we never ever see him as a BEAR CUB, but ... I mean, he must have been one, right? Cartoons don't have actual lives, but ... still ... it's implied. Let's do it!"
- 52D: Many men on dating shows (HUNKS) — is this true? Also, do people still say "HUNKS?' Unironically? I was honestly looking for a more modern word. HIMBOS? HIMBI?
- 44D: Pet sitters? (LAP CATS) — they are pets who sit (on your lap). I think you are the sitter, technically. Cats rarely sit in laps. They lie. Or flop. I had LAP here and had to wait for crosses, as LAP DOGS is not only a possible answer, but probably the more common phrase (LAP DOGS define a certain kind of small dog, different from most other, larger dogs, whereas LAP CATS ... any cat might be a lap cat. Most cats I know have, at some time or other, been LAP CATS. It's almost redundant).
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| [Pet sitters?] |
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